St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, has played an influential role in the city’s complex and diverse story. The origins of the site appear to have been a holy well, said to have been used by Patrick himself in the 5th century. A late 8th century reference to St Patrick’s in insula (or St Patrick’s on an island) suggests that there was an early church on the site, that was presumably situated on a small island between two branches of the River Poddle. The presence of an early medieval church is supported by six stone grave slabs that appear to date to around the 10th century. However this location on the low-lying ground hasn’t always been appreciated, as an account from c.1841 describes: ‘Its situation, however is most objectionable, being built on the lowest ground in the city, and surrounded on every side with old narrow streets, of the meanest and filthiest description…’

In 1191 John Cumin, Dublin’s first Anglo-Norman archbishop, oversaw the creation of a collegiate establishment. This was a place where clergy could devote their time in equal measure to worship and study. The church was rededicated to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Patrick in 1192. At this time it appears that while archbishop Cumin had enlarged or embellished the existing church, it wasn’t until the time of Cumin’s successor, the influential Archbishop Henry de Loundres, that work began the cathedral that we know today. In 1225 King Henry III gave protection to clergymen who begged and raised funds across Ireland to pay for the building. By 1254 the building was consecrated, suggesting that it was completed (or near completed) by that date. It was constructed in a cruciform shape in the English Gothic style, with its distinctive pointed arches, vaulted roofs, buttresses, large windows, and spires. 

St Patrick’s Cathedral has been enlarged and modified multiple times throughout its long history. Some of these changes reflected the changing architectural tastes and styles of the contemporary archbishop or a patron. Though sometimes they were a response to calamity, such as in 1362 when the church was ‘damaged by fire due to the negligence of John the sexton’. One particularly beautiful addition was made in c.1270, when the Archbishop Falk de Saunford had the Lady Chapel built behind the high altar. In 1665 the Lady Chapel, was given over to Huguenot worship, and was renamed L’Eglise Française de St Patrick. It can still be seen today, surrounded by reminders of Huguenot life in the city, such as the Huguenot Bell, which is dedicated “To the glory of God and in the memory of the coming of the Huguenots to Dublin, 1685.”  The Huguenots were Calvinist protestants, who had been forced to flee France to escape religious persecution in the 17th century. One of the prominent members of the Huguenots was Élie Bouhéreau, who became the first librarian of the nearby Marsh’s Library. This had been established by Archbishop Narcissus Marsh as Ireland’s first Public Library in 1707.

By the early 19th century, the cathedral was becoming increasingly dilapidated, with areas being declared unsafe to the public. To halt the decline, a major programme of reconstruction and renovation was carried out in the middle of the 19th century, funded by the wealthy brewery heir Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, whose statue can today be seen outside the cathedral. His is just one of the many marvellous monuments in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.